


Normal as Blueberry Pie

by executrix



Category: Blakes7
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romance blooms on The Liberator, with a little help from Rodgers and Hammerstein.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal as Blueberry Pie

ACT ONE  
Scene One (the Flight Deck):  
Blake stirred his mug of cocoa, watching the little marshmallows bob to the surface. The first hour of watch had been quiet, so Cally took the scheduled refreshment break to make them a hot drink. "What a combination!" Blake said happily. "Hot body...cold heart. Just what I need, while I'm working through this rebound effect. The Blessing of Cygnus Alpha, you might say. And then, when things settle down on the hormonal front, we can just go back as we were."

The Federation is quite generous with the suppressants it uses to control the predations of convicted sex offenders. This may indeed influence its choice in fit-ups. (The policy of, shall we say, chemical additions rather than biological subtractions merely confirms what a lucky bugger Blake is.) But of course months after the departure of said convicts from Federation auspices, the last traces of the last injection will have vanished.

With, as it were, a bang, and hence, Blake woke up one morning to discover that his once-inevitable morning greeting, absent for many sad months, had returned. He grinned, tested his good fortune, and fifteen minutes later got to test it again, indeed had to adjourn a crew meeting for the purpose. As a scientist, he couldn't wait to see how it operated with other people, and he was delighted to, so to speak, secure immediate funding from the first foundation to which he submitted a proposal.

Cally touched the side of her mug. Cocoa could be quite an acceptable beverage, she discovered. If you let it cool down a little. And doctored it up with enough tabasco sauce. The Auronar had always been cautious about their contacts with h-saps, and now she could certainly see why. They were mad as March hares, all the year round. None of the other auronoid species wantonly squandered their mental and spiritual power by engaging in crypto-breeding activities not only outside spawning season, but when they were perfectly aware that no offspring would result.

"From what I know of h-saps--*humans*," Cally said carefully, "These things really don't turn out that simple." She didn't like the expression on Blake's face--the cultic rigidity of a man trying to convince himself of something he knows to be patently untrue, no matter how much he would like it to be. {{Never have seen it to fail. Never have seen it to fail. Person in love with any man, is doomed to weep and wail.}}

"Oh, with an ordinary chap, I'm sure they wouldn't."

Blake smiled, reminiscently. He'd always thought that Avon looked quite fanciable, but with the physical reactions of an 88-year-old man, there wasn't much he could do about it. With the physical reactions of a 16-year-old boy, Blake was able to offer himself as a partner in meaningless pleasures, and oh how delightfully they had been forthcoming, an uncomplicated romp within his far-too-complex life. His mate appeared to be close-covered in erogenous zones, and if there was anything Avon didn't like to do in bed, Blake was happy to leave it in Latin in the Psychopathia Sexualis.

"But think who we're talking about. Someone with whatever atavistic feelings he ever may have had buried in a salt mine with a neutron bomb hair-triggered over the entrance..."

Cally asked herself what would happen to whoever happened to be standing outside the mine when a security breach occurred--either from the outside or the inside. But what's the use of wonderin'? "Even pride? And there's two to be considered. What about your feelings?"

"Under control. I'm keeping the whole thing in perspective. My mind's much clearer if I have an outlet for those...energies."

The bell rang for the end-of-shift. Jenna and Gan walked onto the flight deck.

{{Oh, surprise me}} Cally thought.

"Well, I suppose I'll just go see what Avon is up to," Blake said. "Have a quiet watch, you two."

Scene Two (The Galley):  
Blake gazed through the bright golden haze in the galley, fashioned of heat and vapor. Avon's skin was flushed and moist, his hair a little damp, he had his intent look zipped into place, and he murmured something about reaching the hard-ball stage. His plain white linen shirt adhered to his back in two ovals, and had come unmoored from a pair of medium-grey leggings he kept as utility wear, tucked into a pair of short, soft boots that had no fastenings--as Blake knew, the boots could be kicked off in an instant. No hands.

Unfortunately, all he was bent over was a copper preserving pan in the galley, in aid of making marmalade out of the three crates of Gurnivian limorances he had insisted on acquiring. Even worse, Blake could see an empty bottle of what had been very good Scotch on the counter.

The wide-mouthed jars gleamed, waiting to be filled.

In three steps, Blake was out of the door and into the galley, his arms wrapped around Avon's waist. Avon, maddeningly, kept stirring. "Salty sugar crystals," Blake said. "Lovely. Let me lick them off you."

Avon straightened up, although not without what could only be called a wriggle. "As you can see, I'm busy."

"Well, how long is it going to take?"

"About another two and a half hours."

"Can't you put it in the oven, then? Or the microwave? Or the convection oven?" Blake knew that it was pointless to suggest just tipping the muck into the disposal unit. Well, he never threw anything out himself.

"It has to be stirred frequently so it doesn't stick. Rather like a risotto."

"The turntable, then, in the microwave. And couldn't you fit up some sort of paddle attachment to do the stirring?"

"I suppose I could," Avon said, starting to get interested in the problem. "From the food processor, perhaps."

Blake took the tablet out of his pocket and started sketching. "What's the turntable, 12 rpm? If you could get the paddle going widdershins, you might be able to get it finished in...oh, say an hour and a half? And with higher heat?"

"You want to keep it at about 90," Avon said. "The desired outcome is melted sugar, not caramelized."

A few minutes later, they left the galley, having come to an agreement about the best way to mechanize the marmalade-creation process (bearing in mind the additional heat generated by the immersion blender hooked up to lid...) If only it could always be like this, Avon thought. Working on something together. No one shooting at us. And wanting to finish something quickly, so we can get to the cabin and get all over one another.

Every time he lost a wrasslin' match, he got a funny feeling that he won.

Scene Three (Blake's Cabin):

"Jection," Avon said. "Monet," he added sentimentally. The walls of Blake's cabin were instantly spangled with impressionistic sunlight and dappled greenery. (Avon rather liked having an audience of painted, bonnetted, crinolined ladies, but Blake insisted on having nothing but landscape on the walls.)

Blake sat down on the bed, which now had a couple of trees projected on it, and unlatched the fastenings of his shirt, where his hand was soon joined by what appeared to be four of Avon's, relieving him of most of what he was wearing.

Blake had observed that underwear--quite apart from its contents--seemed to hold a certain fascination for his vis-à-vis. So he didn't mind retaining his comfortably vast boxer shorts (white, with blue and green lozenges) while Avon lay down beside him, still clad in a cream-and-silver knitted singlet and close-cut (carefully taut) black silk shorts with an inseam of perhaps three inches.

Avon slid his left hand into one capacious leg of Blake's boxers. (It might, perhaps, have been possible to insert a credit card into the leg of his own underwear, but certainly not a hand.) He began to stroke the junction between Blake's legs and pelvis with his thumb and little finger (which must have been a span of at least an octave), which left his palm very comfortably filled indeed. He put his right hand on top of the placket and petted gently. "Ah," he said. "A few of my favorite things."

Sooner or later he got around to removing Blake's boxer shorts (by which time it was fairly difficult). When he did, he pillowed his head on Blake's stomach, and licked from root to tip of the top surface of Blake's cock, over and over, the more generally visited underside stroking gently against his forearm.

Blake didn't remember anyone ever going at it from that way round. But then, he had never met anyone who referred to a fuck as "internal revenue" either.

Scene Four (Gan's Cabin):  
At the end of every off-shift, just before going to sleep, Gan logged on his terminal and went to the CADCAMPaint program, generating a new image of Merula's face, then went to the database and answered a few random questions about Merula's (rather short) life, opinions, and pleasures.

And every shift, the computer would compare the image with the one he generated in the first freshness of his grief, and compare the accuracy of his responses to the questions. They drifted away, of course, uncontrollably.

Someday, the computer would tell him that his memory had faded enough, and he could think again about courting another spouse.   
That was the custom prescribed by the Elders of Demeter, and Gan thought it was a wise one.

At the end of the storm, there's a golden sky. And the sweet silver song of the lark.

Perhaps then he could persuade Blake to undertake a rescue mission to one of the planets where bondslaves were held. And he could find a solid, no-nonsense sort of woman, accustomed to hard work, who would be glad to fight by his side for freedom. That would suit him down to the ground.

Scene Five (the Flight Deck):  
The rigors of standing watch did not preclude Avon from, for instance, eating a smoked-salmon sandwich (and thinking of capers still in the future). And the idiom "standing" watch did not preclude him from, at that point in time, sitting on Blake's lap, which made a perfect vantage point for reviewing the Sector 4 traffic.

He put down the sandwich, drew a long breath, and said, "Blake, I...." then was unable to continue.

About twenty seconds later, Blake said, "What d'you make of that vessel over at K19/B112?" There was nothing else on the screen, and the silhouette was far enough away that it wouldn't be trouble for hours, if at all.

"Jevroni merchantman, I should say." Despite Avon's lack of military background, he was already an adequate shot and a very good ship-spotter; he had a knack for pattern recognition of the silhouettes. "You can tell by the round bottom.".

"I thought that was my line," Blake said. "Here, lean forward a bit, I want to get at my tiffin." Blake leaned back, reaching for a cold beef sandwich on a salt-encrusted breadroll. He closed his eyes in blissful contentment, then opened them again to sweep the screens. Still OK.

"I never thought...that is, I never expected..." Avon started up again.

"Mmmmmpph?" Blake said encouragingly, around a mouthful of roast beef and Bermuda onion slices.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," Avon said. He began to stroke Blake's thigh, then stopped, because there was to be no fooling around on watch. He turned it into an affectionate squeeze, then wondered if perhaps he weren't reassuring himself with the solid warmth of his lover's leg, and in the end he just took his hand away and put it on the countertop.

Blake finished the sandwich and reached for the bottle of lager on the console. "Cat got your tongue, eh? Well, let's hope you get it back before our sleep shift."

Scene Six (the Flight Deck):  
"An expedient arrangement has picked up a sort of momentum..." Avon said.

+Doesn't it always? Jenna could have told you that, out of her Mills and Boon stash.+

"Well, what am I to do?" Avon asked, keenly feeling the lack of any more kindly-disposed confidant; he might have asked Cally, but she was Blake's friend.

+Why don't you threaten to re-program Blake? That's your solution to everything, isn't it?+

"If I loved him, words wouldn't come in an easy way," Avon said. "Round in circles, I'd go."

Zen snorted, which in its case sounded like a ripple of Siamese temple bells.

"Longing to speak my mind, yet scared and shy, I'd let my golden chances pass me by..."

+Don't start collecting things.+

"What?" Avon said.

+Put back that rose and Blake's glove. Avon, they're suspecting things.+

"Oh, to Hell with all of them, very most particularly including you." {{Let people say I'm in love. It's true, isn't it?}} "This has gone far enough."

For all the good falling in love with him had ever done anyone, Avon was more or less content for Blake not to fall in love with him. He was also more or less content to avoid actual relevant spoken words in discussing the topic with Blake, or at least had come to terms with not being able to force any of them out of his mouth. But to have his own feelings exposed, to be snickered at by a motley collection of carbon- and silicon-based halfwits, was intolerable.

For a moment he wondered if it would be any better to be snickered at by, for instance, the entire mathematics faculty of the University of Bellhangria. But it was an essentially unanswerable question. Much like the problem of what to respond to a charge that a meal wasn't fit for pigs. "It is, too!" somehow seems like a weak riposte.

Scene Seven (Blake's Cabin):  
Instantly, none of Avon was within range of any part of Blake.   
"I don't pass myself off as an endocrinologist," Avon said. "But I'm sure that the rebound effect must be a temporary phenomenon in a man of your age. Your libido must have returned to its ordinary levels."

"Randy bastard, aren't I?" Blake said blandly.

"I supplied the necessary tools, for a crisis that happened to be hormonal this time rather than electronic. You got what you wanted. You don't need me any more."

Blake reflected that, if Avon expected encomia about his erotic prowess, he should have had the occasional kind word to say about Blake's military prowess. And anyway, it was the sign of a tyro concert-goer to applaud every time the music stopped. "I'm deeply, deeply touched by your recollected altruism," Blake told him. For Christ's sake, Blake thought. The rebound effect must have worn off ages ago, why hadn't Avon noticed that we kept on because we liked it? Blake could have sworn that he was also being caressed the whole time he was being felt up.

ACT TWO  
Scene One (the Flight Deck):  
"Why should a person who is healthy and strong whimper like a baby when some man's gone away?" Blake said. "Weeping and a wailing that he done him wrong...that's one thing you'll never hear me say. Many a new day will dawn before I do."

Zen's mind, although artificial, was fair. +He may not always do, What you would have him do. But now and then, he'll do something wonderful.+

"Oh, well, if you phrase it that way," Blake said. The bell rang. "Here come Cally and Vila. G'night, then, all."

Fifteen minutes into the watch, Cally said, "Vila, please go to Fabrication Room 3 and get me the laser probe I left on the workbench--the one with the bit of silver tape on the stock."

"What for? There's lots of stuff in the cabinet behind the sofa cushions."

"Just go...and take the long way around, all right?"

"If you say so, but I'm telling if I get in trouble for wandering off during watch."

{{I hate to see them unhappy}} Cally sent.

+In one case, I can steel myself remarkably well. But I suppose it could impair their efficiency. I liked it better when we were crewed by Altas, we hadn't any of this carry-on. I like you.+

They talked for a while. [NEW: Cally said, "You haven't seen many humans, of course, but Blake really is quite unusual. His charm so strongly works 'em that if you now beheld them, your affections would become tender."

+Dost think so, Cally?+

"Mine would, Zen, were I human."

+All right, I'll try, but it seems like a feeble sort of contrivance.+

"The book is always the weakest element, isn't it?" Cally said. "And the second act is the weakest part of the book. Just as long as we can get to the eleven o'clock song."

Scene Two (Subcontrol Room Three):

Zen helpfully went through a small pocket of turbulence, which was not appreciated by Jenna (who ended up trimming her favorite tunic with lemon tea) or Vila (who fell out of bed and bumped his nose).

Blake burst through the door, stepping on several small components on the floor. Avon, who was sitting on the floor trying to overclock one of the processors for the second bank of blasters, saw that Blake was likely to trip, and pulled over a swivel chair for Blake to fall into.

Avon waited for the litter of stuff he had put on the floor to settle back down, then held up a tube to see if it was still intact. Satisfied that it was, he fitted it into something inside a cabinet at floor level.

Blake scouted the room anxiously for the reported emergency. "Is there anything wrong in here?"

"Why? Did that electronic Marje Proops tell you there was? You've been victimized by another delusion."

"All right, I'll go then. By the way, Jenna says she'll exchange with you if you don't want to take the second-shift watch with me tomorrow."

Avon had just said, "I don't need any favors from her either," when the door locked itself solidly.

Blake headed for the communicator to say something like "Someone get right over here with override for the door locks." Avon said, "...or from them." He unzipped his jacket, took out a small pencil torch, and shone it until he found a small panel at the junction of the wall and the ceiling.

He pulled the chair over, locked down its swivel casters, and climbed up, but couldn't reach the panel even by stretching perilously.

Blake silently gave him a boost until he could clamber onto a cabinet, and remained there, steadying Avon's legs. Avon pressed his fingertips to the panel. "Second input required," it told him in a schoolmarm voice.

"How amusing," Avon said. "Zen must have put in that feature to distinguish between situations in which the crew have been imprisoned by outsiders, and a sanctioned attempt at isolation." He started to climb down from the cabinet, thought better of it, and scooted over to make enough room for Blake to scramble up. Blake pressed his fingers to the panel.

"At the same time..." the panel said, annoyed that it took them so long to figure it out.

"Shall we argue about whose fingers go on top, or just get on with it?" Blake said, but did not receive a reply. The door slid open, but for the moment, they stayed huddled between the cabinet and the ceiling. "Feels good, doesn't it?" Blake said.

This time he got an answer, however briefly: "Yes."

"But not just that."

"No." Avon pulled Blake's head down on his shoulder and held it there for a moment, then he broke away and slid down to the floor and watched to make sure Blake completed the same maneuver safely.

"You know, when we first started, the first thing you said when you got your mouth back was 'No strings, no involvements,'" Blake said. "And after all, crew of this size...well, you wouldn't have Vila or Gan and Jenna and Cally wouldn't have you."

"If you had to choose only one thing I've ever said to listen to, I wish you hadn't picked that one."

"You don't make it easy," Blake said.

"What, compared to conquering the Federation with an army of five and Vila?"

"How does the song go?" Blake asked. "'How could you believe me when I said I didn't love you when you know I've been a liar all my life?"

"Other way around," Avon told him.

Scene Three (Another Part of the Ship):  
"I'll take care of it," Avon said. Vila's eyes nearly fell out of his head. Avon volunteering for a filthy, sweaty job half a day's hike from the flight deck?

And, even though it was his sleep shift, which was the reason why Blake needed a volunteer instead of just assigning Vila to do it (or Gan, who was recovering from Nervonian coryza and still coughed heart-rendingly), Vila shadowed Avon to see just what it was he was up to.

It took almost twenty minutes (and a jaw nearly dislocated with yawns) before the full horror of it sunk in. If he wasn't so tired, nothing off Earth could have kept him from rushing to the party in interest and telling the whole thing.

Scene Four (Corridor/B Deck Bathroom):  
"You've got to hear this," Vila said, flying down the corridor until he met Jenna, not really by chance. She was striding down the corridor, wrapped in a hooded white terrycloth dressing gown, carrying her spongebag.

"Zen said that the filtration ducts in Nacelle II were clogged, and the auto-clean wasn't handling it properly, Blake said that someone ought to go and have a look, and when he was there, give it a good clean-around, and Avon--fancy this--*Avon* volunteered. Well, that didn't seem like him, so I followed him back there, and do you know what he did?"

"Presumably not plant a bomb, or it wouldn't be me you'd be telling and not after all this time," Jenna said, checking that the sash of her dressing gown was securely in place. She put down her spongebag, sensing that this was going to take awhile.

"No! He schlepped all the way over to Nacelle II, got up on a ladder, poked around a bit, then scooted down and hooked up a power hose and sucked it all out and then reversed it and hosed it down, huge dirty great spray."

"Sigmund Freud had nothing on you," Jenna said.

"Well, there are lots of ducts out there, it was a big job, and soon he was covered with sweat and grime and all you could see was the whites of his eyes and whatever bits of one of Blake's old shirts that weren't completely filthy, and he was dancing with the hose, round a maypole like, and singing."

Vila could still hear it ("No more a smart little girl with no heart I have found me a wonderful guy...I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love.......)

Jenna giggled, but this was not the full scope of the reaction Vila was looking for. "I can always use a laugh, but..."

"Well, you know, if they're actually in love with each other, then it's not all going to blow over."

"Would you like to rephrase that?"

"If you cry at different movies? If you bat for different teams?"

"What do you suggest I do, then?" {{Oh, surprise me.}}

"Waste no time," Vila told her. "Make a switch. Dump him in the nearest ditch. Write him out of your rollcall..and drum him out of your dreams."

By this time, he had followed her into the bathroom. She was already behind the shower curtain; her dressing-gown had already been pushed onto the floor through a small gap in the shower curtain; and she was already submerged beneath the pounding water, shampoo bursting into full lather.

The light was behind Vila, so she wasn't immensely surprised to see all of him pop into the shower. In absence of words of dismissal, he revealed a degree of experience by opting immediately for undergoing drowning risk in lieu of the risk of both of them breaking their necks. He sat down on the floor of the shower tray and deferred visual pleasures in favor of bolstering his argument. By the time he had embraced her knees and kissed upward, and by the time Jenna's hair was clean and rinsed, she had re-evaluated the entire project.

Vila stood up, put her arms around his neck, and with adequate incentive managed a fireman's carry as far as the bank of washbasins against the mirrored wall. He perched her on the edge of the counter, and began to kiss water drops clinging to her breasts.

"Oh, all right," she said. "But if you tell anyone, I'll cripple you."

This was nothing new for Vila, who was certainly prepared to put up with a degree of deniability in exchange for the chance to screw a gorgeous snooty Alpha blonde. (Furthermore, even though he had draped an antique object of unknown purpose known as a "necktie" over the bathroom doorhandle, there was always a chance someone on B Deck would fancy a spot of cleanliness and walk in, or at least walk past, developing their own evidence.)

For once he would like initial grudging acquiescence to be replaced by enthusiasm, and it would be smashing to have someone chasing him for once in a while. And maybe he ought to put his foot down for a change instead of just putting up with whatever came his way. But that this late date, it would mean turning into someone else, and after there had been so many unsuccessful attempts to adjust him, he wasn't going to adjust himself.

FINALE (Avon's Cabin):  
"Who can explain it?" Blake said, stroking the hair away from Avon's forehead.

"*Fools* give you reasons," Avon said, giving it lots. "Wise men never try."

 _Fly to his side  
And make him your own  
Or all through your life  
You may dream...all alone_


End file.
